My email inbox today was blasted by at least a dozen eye-hurting emails announcing various sales for black Friday. Years ago when I worked at a record store, we’d say thanks to the shoppers, shopping bags in hand, by wishing them a “happy buy nothing day“. We were smarmy scenesters who wore only thrift-store clothes and made minimum wage. A few years later, I worked as a web designer for Adbusters, the anti-consumerist magazine who started the concept of buy nothing day. And now as the big shopping day arrives, I just want some calm and quiet. Instead of blinking animated gifs and muzak, I’m passing along this delicious and wholesome recipe. Broccoli and millet with a little punch of strong cheddar cheese to make things more interesting.

There’s not much to do here. Just prepare the millet and when it’s about 10 minutes shy from ready, add in a bunch of chopped broccoli. When it’s done, stir in a little grated cheese. Done. It’s a side dish miracle!

It’s such a simple recipe with no crazy spices or out-there flavours. Instead, it’s calm and comforting and would be the kind of thing to remind me of childhood if I had heard of millet way back then. My childhood loss is my adult gain because millet is awesome (if you’ve followed this blog for a while, you know I think millet is much more delicious than quinoa). Though, if you’ve got quinoa in your cupboard, please feel free to use that instead.

elsewhere: See those triangle orange things in the photo below? That is some tasty glazed tofu. Get the hot & sweet marmalade glazed tofu recipe over at Poppytalk. It’s also another quick and easy-to-love recipe.

Dry toast the millet in a medium-sized saucepan over med-high heat, shaking the pan often so the millet doesn’t burn – for 1-2 minutes. Add stock or water, cover and bring to a boil. Turn down heat to a simmer and cook for 10 minutes. Add the chopped broccoli to the saucepan – do not stir – sprinkle a little salt over top the broccoli and cover. After 5 minutes, turn off heat, stir broccoli into the millet and cover for 10 minutes. Dump broccoli & millet mixture into a serving bowl, grind in some pepper and stir in the grated cheese. Serve immediately.

16 comments to “a side dish miracle: cheesy broccoli millet”

This is why I think you are soooo AWESOME, kickpleat! I love the concept of “Buy Nothing Day” which is exactly what I did today…buy nothing. Am I just clueless or is Black Friday a relatively recent concept? I had never heard of it prior to 3-4 years ago.

I saw you Flickr pics with the marmalade tofu and immediately zeroed in on the green-speckled mound on the plate. I was curious as to what that was. Now I know and it looks yummy!!!

Thankfully we don’t have Black Friday in the UK because Thanksgiving isn’t a thing. Haven’t ever cooked with millet before. Do you have to always ‘toast’ it? Anyway this looks great. I have been throwing small bits of broccoli into soups and casseroles at the end of cooking a lot recently. This looks perfect. Made a nice soup with puy lentils, carrots, garlic and onions and threw some chopped up broccoli in the other day. Topped it with cottage cheese and it was satisfying.